Road Warrior: Distracted driving crashes, deaths called an 'epidemic'

Paramus police set up a checkpoint for distracted drivers on Farview Avenue.

If you’re wondering why police at driver-inattention checkpoints are pulling over a record number of motorists as if they were stray cattle at a roundup, New Jersey’s chief law-enforcement officer offered a compelling reason Monday during a traffic-safety event in Paramus.

Driver inattention contributed to 1.4-million crashes during the 10-year period ending in 2013, said Acting Attorney-General John Hoffman outside Paramus Borough Hall as traffic whizzed by on nearby Route 17. The figure represents roughly half the road crashes reported by police during that period as captured in state Department of Transportation records.

It also includes 1,600 deaths, factors Hoffman described as an epidemic.

“We need to put an end to the epidemic… and close the book on the distracted driving decade,” Hoffman said. What troubled him most, he added, was the general perception that the epidemic “seems to be getting progressively worse.”

In 2004, distractions represented 42 percent of all road crashes, a figure that gradually rose to 53 percent last year, he added.

So, on this sunny April day, more than 200 Garden State police departments were continuing the nation’s first national crackdown on handheld cellphone use which began April 1. So far, the New Jersey campaign has produced about 3,000 tickets in 60 towns that qualified for federal overtime grants to enforce the ban, Hoffman said.

If Paramus – a grant recipient that has written 370 tickets so far – is any barometer, police are producing at least 30 times the usual number of cellphone tickets issued in a routine April. Last year, borough police netted only 12 of these violations in April.

But why cellphones? Why not drinking, eating, applying makeup, arguing with a passenger, or bending over at 40 mph to pick up cookies, soda cans or lipstick?

Police say they watch for those things, too, but handheld cellphones are among the easiest offenses to spot because they represent a sustained driving violation.

And texting behind the wheel – as in taking a driver’s eyes off the road long enough to finger a simple code such as “CU @ 8”? How do they spot that?

“We use an SUV,” explained Sgt. Vincent Pepe, who heads the Paramus traffic bureau. “It gives us enough height to see what’s going on in the car.”

No one expects this month’s 30-fold increase in cellphone tickets – either in Paramus or elsewhere – to continue. Most of the funded towns don’t have the manpower to continue to conduct checkpoints which usually require two or more officers and patrol cars for spotting violators and chasing them down. But, as Hoffman explained, dedicating periodic check points and roving patrols has proved successful in trimming the number of crashes, deaths and injuries caused by driving drunk and failing to fasten seat belts.

“Records show that high-visibility law enforcement campaigns have been very effective,” he said.

New Jersey’s seat-belt usage in the front seat has climbed past 90 percent, although rear-seat usage remains much lower. Drunken-driving deaths have receded from their highs in the 1980s, but have remained stuck in the 30-percent range.

Still, the distracted-driving campaign may have the biggest impact on young drivers, noted a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“More than half the drivers in fatal crashes who use cellphones [nationwide] were 15 to 29 years old,” said Thomas Louizou, NHTSA’s northeast regional administrator. “And over 70 percent of teens have either composed or sent text messages while driving. Nearly 80 percent have read text messages while driving.”

“At any given daylight moment, over half-a-million drivers across America are using cellphones or manipulating electronic devices,” Louizou added.

If sobering national and state statistics weren’t enough to discourage this dangerous habit, Hoffman brought crash victim Gabe Hurley with him to make his case even stronger. When he was just out of college in 2009, the Middlesex motorist was almost killed in a crash in Edison involving a young distracted driver. The force of the collision catapulted an air-conditioning part through Hurley’s windshield and left him blind and disfigured. Now 29, Hurley wears a patch over his left eye. His right eye is a prosthetic and he walks with a cane.

“Sometimes people have the nerve to say my crash was a bizarre accident,” he told the audience of journalists and cops. “But accidents are avoidable. Mine wasn’t. Drivers are responsible for controlling their vehicles. And the penalties should be more than a slap on the wrist.”

In July, the $100 fine for violating the handheld cellphone law rises from $200 to $400. A second offense makes the driver eligible for a $400-to-$600 penalty. The third offense raises the fine to as much as $800 plus three insurance points. Causing injury or death can mean a reckless driving charge which can bring much higher penalties including a jail term.

Would it be simpler require automakers to include driver-text-blocking devices in cars? The acting attorney-general didn’t raise any objections.

“But first let’s see how we do with our enforcement program,” he said.